on sight

Idioms

Also, at sight. Immediately upon seeing, as in The soldiers threatened to shoot looters on sight, or He's able to multiply those three-digit figures at sight. [Second half of 1400s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The school may use the dashboard to identify rule-breakers in the future, but for now, teachers and staff are simply confiscating phones on sight, he said.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 31, 2025

"Operators do a lot of caramel testing, just on sight and on feel. So basically, they walk up to the caramel and just give it a squeeze."

From BBC • Dec. 18, 2025

Maybe it's because after "Not Like Us" dropped, Drake's decades-long rap career was effectively considered dead on sight.

From Salon • Dec. 28, 2024

Astronomy has long centered on sight, says Kimberly Arcand, visualization scientist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

From National Geographic • Jan. 26, 2024

Most of the boys in the other shops around Hancock’s Wharf liked Johnny, although some of them fought him on sight.

From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023